Clearwater to Sarasota

We spent two nights at Treasure Island Yacht and tennis club.  The place was really nice, Emily worked on her ping pong skills, and both of the girls enjoyed cable TV for the first time since we left.  The most memorable line to me was "Didn't we just see this ad?"

Emily's birthday started early on the 22nd, when she opened presents, a cam corder, all of the necessities for a spa treatment, and the treatment from her sister.  Oh yea, and CHOCOLATE!  We really are taking some wind down time, it has been very busy getting here, which is not what it appears like when you see the boats anchored in the harbor. 

Need to get haircuts, and look into a nagging oil leak on the engine.  We found a stylist for the girls, and got a ride with from the marina, nice new full size van.  Apparently "The Club" at Treasure Island decided to build a mega club house for 5 million dollars, and when it got to 10 million the membership fell to 10 members, who did not want to foot the bill.  Then a billionaire, not sure which one, bought it and he keeps adding on.  While we were there they leveled the area around one end of the Olympic to put in a Grata with a bunch of hot tubs.  They had a free arcade, ping pong tables, a spa and workout area, etc.  The girls were sad to go. 
We motored to an anchorage off of Gulfport, a little town nestled between Treasure Island and St. Pete, with a nice wide open anchorage. 

They have a dingy dock for the mutt, and we can dingy to Publix supermarket.

Publix Parking Lot

  The engine leaked about a 1/4 cup of oil.  Everyone at Honeywell knows how I feel about leaks.  I think I found it!  It appears the rear camshaft seal is leaking, Lakewood Yacht Services (NASA Road One, Clearwater, Texas) had just totally rebuild this engine and they said, "you don't really need a special tool to put those rings in like is says in the manual...sometimes they just leak"  I believe they used channel locks (adjustable pliers) to install it.  I would fix it myself, but I don't carry channel locks on the boat. 

We went to the beach and played sand volleyball, had someone gotten a video of that, I am sure it would make it on U tube as a national favorite.  We played against some local folks, and we were significantly out weighed.

We had a great Thanksgiving on the hook at Gulfport, we had the usual fair, turkey, dressing, beans wrapped in bacon, rolls.  Michelle did as good as she did last year for Thanksgiving, when we were on the boat going the other way. 

We passed the Skyway bridge, which was the replacement for the old one that was hit by and ship and collapsed into the bay, killing quite a few people.  Note the huge bollards to prevent this from occurring again.

Saturday we motored to Sarasota, and anchored, staying in a marina around here is just a bit pricey, $2.25/foot/night.  Makes the dingy ride to shore a little  more pleasurable.  We had some rough looking weather come trough, but it ended up not being so bad, nothing like the Rigolots.